One Step at a Time? It’s More Complicated Than That

LONDON — You would think the racewalking community would embrace the Olympics. After all, the sport is largely ignored and often ridiculed, so getting the chance to race on international television once every four years ought to be cause for celebration.

But when the Games arrive, racewalkers and their judges brace for an onslaught. Television, it turns out, is racewalkers’ worst enemy because cameras often zoom in on their feet, and the picture is not pretty. In slow motion, viewers can see racers with both feet off the ground, seemingly breaking one of the sport’s two cardinal rules: thou shalt have at least one foot in contact with the ground at all times.

Over the course of a 20-kilometer (12.4-mile) or 50-kilometer (31.1-mile) race, the sight of racewalkers apparently flouting the rules can lead to howls from the public and the news media, with calls for racewalking to be thrown out of the Olympics.

“If you don’t like racewalking, it becomes easy to look at these freeze-frame photos,” said Gary Westerfield, one of 30 international judges certified to officiate Olympic racewalking events.

The trouble is that the rules of racewalking are lost in the debate over whether the sport is legitimate or a charade. Rule 230 of the I.A.A.F. rule book states that “racewalking is a progression of steps so taken that the walker makes contact with the ground so that no visible (to the human eye) loss of contact occurs.”

“To the human eye” is the critical part because it underscores the subjective nature of judging the sport. Unlike television cameras, the human eye has difficulty confirming that both feet are in the air for less than 30 or 40 milliseconds. Racewalkers and judges grasp this, but critics argue that this inability to police the sport erodes its credibility.

“This has become a problem because every four years they’ll show athletes off the ground,” said Dave McGovern, a racewalking coach and judge and the author of “The Complete Guide to Racewalking.”

“It’s about the threshold that an eye can see it,” McGovern said, “but in terms of the public, they freak out.”

In a sport that gets more than its share of needling because of the way the walkers swing their hips, racewalkers are understandably sensitive about the scrutiny. They argue, though, that the vagaries of judging racewalking are no different from, say, those of determining balls and strikes in baseball or traveling calls in basketball.

Photo

Bernardo Segura of Mexico, right, and Robert Korzeniowski of Poland in the racewalking event at the Sydney Games in 2000. Segura was later disqualified, losing his gold medal to Korzeniowski.Credit
Barton Silverman/The New York Times

Some of the wounds, though, are self-inflicted because judging the sport is so quirky. Eight judges from different countries are positioned along the two-kilometer loop used for Olympic races. If they see infractions — either a loss of contact with the ground or a bent knee (the other cardinal rule) — they are encouraged to flash a yellow warning paddle at the walker. A judge who sees the same athlete break the same rule again can write a red card. Walkers who receive red cards from three different judges are disqualified.

In the men’s 20-kilometer race last Saturday, 56 athletes started the race. Two racewalkers were disqualified (a Russian and a Colombian), 8 received two red cards and 15 were given one red card.

To prevent a judge from single-handedly disqualifying a walker, judges can give only one red card per athlete. Once that red card is given, the walker effectively becomes invisible to that judge. Walkers, though, are not told which judge gave them a red card, to prevent them from blatantly breaking the rules when passing a judge who could no longer issue a card.

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Athletes, however, can see how many red cards they have when they pass a sign board on the course.

Only the chief judge or his assistants can remove a walker from the course. It takes time, though, for the field judges to notify the chief judge of a red-card infraction. Hand-held devices are used to notify a recorder in the chief judge’s station. Bicycle messengers also ferry written red cards to the recorder.

Only after the chief judge has confirmed that three judges have given a red card is a walker removed from the course.

This gap has led to some embarrassing gaffes, most notably in Sydney in 2000. In the men’s 20-kilometer race, Bernardo Segura of Mexico crossed the finish line first and was soon speaking by phone with the president of Mexico. While being congratulated, Segura was told he had been disqualified.

In the women’s 20-kilometer event, the race leader, Liu Hongyu of China, was disqualified. Then the new race leader, Elisabetta Perrone of Italy, was disqualified. That put Jane Saville of Australia in the lead. Heading into the stadium, she was disqualified while 90,000 Aussies prepared to crown her a hometown hero.

“I won bronze in Athens, but everyone knows me for the disqualification,” said Saville, who retired in 2008. “Some people who are skeptical have never been out to a race.”

In a sport so hard to judge, calls for using technology are constant. Racewalking officials have considered using a “shoe alarm” that would be triggered whenever a walker had both feet off the ground for more than 30 or 40 milliseconds. The idea was scrapped because the alarm was battery powered and could malfunction.

The use of high-speed cameras has been debated but never adopted for many reasons, including the cost of installing them at non-Olympic races that operate on a tiny budget. To many, letting racewalkers compete without cameras most of the time and then using them at the Olympics would be unfair. If cameras lead to more disqualifications, athletes may get discouraged and quit.

“Our job is not to catch the bad guys gaining an unfair advantage, but to protect the good guys complying with the rules,” said Pierce O’Callaghan, a former Irish racewalker and an Olympic coach and judge. “Judging with the human eye is the worst form of judging, except for all the others.”

2012 LONDON

A version of this article appears in print on August 11, 2012, on Page D4 of the New York edition with the headline: One Step at a Time? It’s More Complicated Than That. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe